Israelis, Palestinians must compromise for peace: German President

Nov 30, 2010, 14:49 GMT

Bethlehem, West Bank - Visiting German President Christian Wulff called Tuesday on Israelis and Palestinians to compromise for peace, saying the opportunity for a viable solution has arisen.

'On this trip, my conviction has grown strongly that peace is possible with the goodwill of all parties,' Wulff said after meeting President Mahmoud Abbas in the southern West Bank town of Bethlehem, the last stop of his three-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are currently in limbo, after a partial, limited Israeli freeze on construction at its West Bank settlements ended on September 26 this year and was not renewed.

Abbas has insisted that the direct talks, which only began at the beginning of September, after a hiatus of nearly two years, will not be renewed until and unless Israel extends the building freeze, something Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu has not yet publicly committed to.

The Palestinian leader told the news conference with Wulff that he extended the 'hand of peace' to Israel, and added that there was no alternative to a Palestinian state on the lands Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 war, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

He said any solution involving temporary borders - which has been floated by some Israeli officials - was out of the question.

Abbas also called for the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who was snatched in June, 2006, during a cross-border raid launched by three Gaza Strip militias, and who is still being held, largely incommunicado, by the Islamist Hamas movement.

He also mentioned the 8,000 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, but said there was no linkage between their release and that of Shalit.

And he thanked Germany for its efforts to mediate the release of Shalit.

Wulff, who met Monday evening with Netanyahu, visited a tent erected opposite the Israeli premier's office by members of Shalit's family, and handed them a copy of a resolution passed by the German parliament, calling for the soldier to be set free.

The German president arrived in Israel Saturday evening, and in addition to Netanyahu, also held talks with other Israeli leaders, among them President Shimon Peres.

On Tuesday morning, before his meeting with Abbas, and accompanied by his 17-year-old daughter, he visited the historic Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, which tradition states was built on the site where Jesus Christ was born.

He also visited the Lutheran Talitha Kumio school, the oldest protestant school in the Palestinian territories.

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